Tasteful Voyages

Oceania Cruises’ culinary excursions connect you with the destination through homegrown ingredients and experiential cooking classes

Taste your way across the world with Oceania Cruises’ unique Culinary Discovery Tours and other epicurean excursions. Exotic towers of spices, vines overflowing with luscious grapes and fragrant fresh produce hint at the culinary culture of your destination as you enjoy privileged access to vibrant local markets and renowned wineries. Then, be granted an insider’s perspective through immersive tastings and hands-on culinary lessons to gain even more insight into the authentic dishes of the region.

Follow the Flavors of the Land

Prime your palate for delectable discoveries as you touch, taste and inhale the scents of local ingredients within your destination, followed by a bounty of culinary experiences that forever connect you to the locale.

Honduran cuisine is the highlight in Roatán with a Farm- & Ocean-to-Table Experience that begins at Blue Harbor Tropical Arboretum. In addition to tropical flowers and plants, the trees in the fruit plantation are heavy with favorites like avocado and mango. You’ll even pluck your own hydroponic lettuce from the Plantation Gardens. With your lettuce harvest in hand, a speedboat shuttles you to La Palapa on Big French Key Beach, where a local chef will demonstrate how your greens provide the perfect bed for plump shrimp just harvested by Honduran fisherman.

Moroccan tajine pots at a souk in Marrakech

Visit the Central Market of Casablanca and the cosmopolitan city’s famous olive market with a chef, where you’ll forage together for preserved lemons, herbs, breads, rose water and argan oil. You might even choose a tagine earthenware pot to recreate your cooking lesson at home, as back on board the ship, the chef prepares a pot of mint tea to sip as you help create Moroccan dishes during a 90-minute class and luncheon.

The Culinary Center

The vibrant open-air market of Antibes is your gateway to a perfect day in Provence. Along with a knowledgeable chef, you’ll be welcomed into bustling stalls to sample quintessential flavors, from wood-fired flatbreads to pungent French cheese. Once you gather the essential ingredients for a Provençal lunch, return on board to The Culinary Center for your personal cooking class that will leave you simultaneously satiated yet craving even more.

Preparing pizza dough at the Torre a Cenaia winery

Experience one of the world’s most renowned culinary regions during a market visit to Livorno’s Mercato Centrale. Armed with a shopping list from your Culinary Center chef, select Tuscan treats like cured meats and fresh-pressed olive oil before touring Torre a Cenaia winery. You’ll sip sangiovese and little-known vermentino wines while admiring rows of cypress trees, followed by a hands-on lesson in a traditional kitchen preparing pizza, herbed focaccia and other flavors of Tuscany.

Parmesan cheese wheel

Authentic tastes of Italy accompany your entire voyage onboard at Toscana restaurant, where Oceania tradition dictates that the head chef always be a native Italian. This means exacting standards for every dish, like the ravioli made from double-zero flour sourced in Naples or the nutty Parmigiano-Reggiano atop your pasta, shaved from an 80-pound wheel direct from Parma.

Create Your Own Culinary Masterpiece

Capellini Alla Emilio is served on board at Toscana

Create in the steps of Oceania Cruises’ esteemed Chef Franck Garanger. Here, we share his special recipe for Capellini Alla Emilio.

Returning to Oceania after the birth of his son Emilio in 2005, Chef Franck Garanger was inspired to create this dish in his honor. The artichokes are seasonal to his birth month, while cherry tomatoes are a reminder of Emilio’s round, cherubic face.

Ingredients

2 large lemons, halved

8 baby artichokes

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cups finely chopped onion

1½ tablespoons finely chopped garlic

24 cherry tomatoes, halved

½ cup dry white wine (such as chardonnay)

1 pound angel hair pasta, preferably De Cecco or Barilla

1 to 1½ cups tomato sauce, heated

2 to 3 tablespoons basil pesto

4 to 6 slices fresh mozzarella or burrata cheese, each ½ inch thick

Cooking Instructions

Over medium heat, add olive oil, onion and garlic and sauté until translucent.

Add in artichokes, which have been prepared and cut into 1/4 inch thick wedges, along with cherry tomatoes.

Sauté the mixture until the artichokes are tender.

Pour in the wine and simmer until the sauce has thickened.

Add 1 cup of tomato sauce along with 1/2 cup of water from the cooked pasta, then stir in 2 tablespoons of pesto.

Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water before tossing the pasta with the mixture in the saucepan. Add in the reserved pasta water as needed, along with the remaining tomato sauce and pesto.

Divide pasta into individual servings, top with cheese and place under a broiler until the cheese is melted.

Serve immediately!

(serves 4-6)

Whether you’re honing your knife skills with a seasoned chef, dining in Master Chef Jacques Pépin’s eponymous restaurant or even joining the legendary restaurateur as he personally hosts Rome- and Lisbon-bound voyages this fall, Oceania’s reputation for presenting “The Finest Cuisine at Sea” is more than a promise — it’s the hallmark of each and every sailing.